Lyla vs. Sleep

This is a photo of a girl named Lyla. It may seem strange that this little girl is sleeping on the bottom step. I, however, find it adorable that her little tiny body fits almost perfectly from end to end. This puzzling situation occurred after her parents kissed this little girl goodnight and tucked her into bed. She protested sleep for so long that she thought she might play a little game and creep her way down the staircase. I think she was quite pleased with herself for reaching the bottom step without any reprimand from her parents. The reality is she was not as sneaky as she thought and they were quite simply ignoring this amusing behavior. As you can see from this photo, she eventually rested her eyes and surrendered to the slumber fairies.

I love this little girl so much. Even when she sleeps like an absolute maniac, I still love her. Her crazy sleep habits make her Lyla and that is a beautiful thing. I want to give a quick timeline of Lyla's erratic sleep history. It's a prime example of how I used to plan out the most picture perfect version of parenthood and got slapped in the face when I realized that's just not how it works because I gave birth to a human and not a robot.

So, let's see, she was born a newborn and didn't like sleep when we liked sleep. She slept all day and cried all night. That was expected. For the first few weeks of her life she would sleep best in the baby swing. I think any newborn money we saved went towards batteries for that damn swing. I'm kidding. I love that swing. It saved our lives countless nights. Those nights were brutal, but I remember them. Like that time I woke up face down on the carpet in a puddle of my own drool, wondering when and how I got there, only to look up and find the swing still rocking and Lyla snoozing away. We eventually upgraded from swing life to the living room recliner. I slept with her in my arms all night long, as far back as that recliner would recline. I figured that was an upgrade from the puddle of drool. Then my mom slapped some sense into me and told me to stop that recliner nonsense. Lyla matured a little around three months and started sleeping in her crib. I finally went back to mattress life in my own bedroom.

Then we started the horribly bad habit of filling a bottle for Lyla anytime she made a slight sound of discomfort during the night. As new parents, we felt every cry was urgent and it was our duty to come to her rescue as quickly as possible. I actually felt strongly about responding to her needs immediately when she was that young. It was important for me to build her trust. However, I wish I would have picked a different late night nurturing option. You know, like rocking her or rubbing her back. But I never had patience for that in the middle of the night. When you are exhausted and so badly need sleep and the convenience of the bottle actually soothes her, well...it's hard to resist. The problem is the late night bottle became a habit. If she woke, she expected a bottle.

Okay. So we continued on that path for a few months and just kept hoping she would change her ways. The six month mark passed. The month where all parenting books in the world promise that your baby will sleep through the night. If you play your cards right, that is. Yeah. Yeah. My logic was that she was very petite and her body needed those extra calories at night. Plus, I felt fortunate that she always napped well and fell asleep easily at bed time. Our issue here was staying asleep. 

She got a little bit older and just as I was comfortable with some sleep training techniques, we did something silly like move to Texas. She was ten months old and for the following five months we shared a bedroom with our sweet little girl---aka no sleep Lyla. The most ideal option was to continue to comply with her late night bottle demands because it would be completely insane to ignore a crying baby when she is literally inches away from you! Also, Kirk just started his new job. He needed to be feeling fresh in the morning and we didn't want to reveal his true zombie-dad status. More excuses. More hoping that Lyla would outgrow this bottle addiction.

Oh crap. Lyla turned one and now I knew we were in trouble. Any doctor will tell you that you are the worst parent in the world if your child has a bottle past age one. I told myself, we are moving soon, so we will just wait until then. More excuses. Phew! Then Lyla turned 15 months and we moved into our house. We had the best intentions to finally take away her bottle. It was time to put our foot down. Stop being enablers! Well. We quickly lost that battle because HELLO she needed some time to adjust to her new surroundings. She was no longer sleeping in the same room as her parents or right across the hall, as she did when she was a baby. It would be so traumatizing to take away her only source of comfort during such a difficult time.

Fast forward a couple more months and the best little brother in town was born. Baby Maxwell. At that point, the goals we planned to achieve with her sleep habits completely fell to the back burner. Because uhh hello. Newborn. Lyla continued on the path of falling asleep at night and waking up 2-3 times for a bottle. Ridiculous. At least we eventually convinced her that it tasted the same at a cold temperature. Warming up a bottle for thirty seconds feels like two hours at 3:00 a.m. She would wake up happily in the morning and all was well. We were consistent about bed time. Consistent with her sleep routine. But somehow (I know how!) it turned into nothing we wanted for our nearly two year old daughter. The bottle and Lyla were best buds. We accepted it because it meant a somewhat decent night of sleep.

Lyla turned two and I made the commitment to myself to take away her bottle for good. Cold turkey. It was a brutal three days. She refused milk from a sippy cup and I was making myself crazy about her proper calcium intake without drinking milk. I eased my mind knowing that less liquid in her belly meant more room for other nutritious foods. My mom called me a meanie and reminded me that I drank from a bottle until the later half of being three. Yes. That was all I needed to hear. I happily returned Lyla's trophy and got back to our normal sleep routine of nightly bottles. 

Nowadays Lyla still has a bottle when she goes to bed. I don't know when it will end. I tell myself soon, but who really knows. However, she has at least replaced the 3:00 a.m. bottle call with creeping into our bedroom. It's pretty cute hearing her little voice in the middle of the night, "mommy....me come in?". Snuggling her is my very favorite and bed sharing is a totally acceptable habit in this house, now that we have a king size bed. Even though those damn doctors say otherwise. Sometimes she kicks us. Sometimes she screams continuously and loudly, for no apparent reason. Those things are very irritating and well, we like to hope she will grow out of those things, just as we have for her entire life. 

Guess what. I discovered this little piece of gold called Vetiver. It is an essential oil extracted from a perennial grass, native to India. It is a calming, grounding oil with a million different benefits. The most beneficial factor for our family---it puts Lyla to sleep for the entire night. No crying. No screaming. No bottle requests. No sneaking down to our room. She wakes up happy as a clam in the morning. I am in shock every single day. It's hard to make a believer out of me when it comes to anything until I have my own personal experience. And this oil. It is magical stuff. It was sent to me straight from heaven [and the internet].

I am so grateful that I have finally found a way to give Lyla the deep sleep that she needs. The sleep her tiny body deserves. It's natural. It's safe. I know I'm not giving her something with a bazillion ingredients or containing some whacky chemical. It's a comforting feeling knowing that her wellness is coming from the earth. The hippy inside me likes that earth shit!